William Henry Perkin

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234 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN

By Dr. BENJAMIN HARROW

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

S every school child knows to-day, the illuminating gas we
use in our homes is largely obtained from the dry dis-
tillation of coal ; but many men and women even to-day are not
aware that, in addition to illuminating gas, other products of
far-reaching commercial importance are also obtained from
this same coal.

Among these coal-tar stands out preeminently. Not so
many years ago it was a waste and a nuisance. To-day it rivals
the coal-gas in utility.

From this dirty black tar, by a series of distillations, we
get benzene and toluene and naphthalene and anthracene — to
mention but four important substances — which are the start-
ing-point for countless products of the dye and synthetic drug
variety.

Out of benzene, for example, we can get aniline, and from
the latter, Perkin, in 1856, obtained the first artificial dyestuff
ever produced.

Born in England, the dye industry was reared and devel-
oped in Germany; and Germany owes much of its greatness,
and very much of its downfall, to it. For the dye industry
proved a nucleus for many other related industries. Thus dyes
gave rise to the manufacture of sulphuric and nitric acids and
caustic soda; these in turn to artificial fertilizers, explosives,
and chlorine ; and the latter to poison gas with all its concomi-
tants. The medicine in small doses and the poison in large;
chlorine as an antiseptic and chlorine as a destroyer — give them
but the wrong twist, and man's ingenuity becomes positively
harmful.

Perkin was born in London in 1838. He was the youngest
son of George Fowler Perkin, a builder and contractor, who
had apparently decided his son's future before the latter had
discarded his swaddling clothes. Perkin, Jr., was to be an
architect.

But Perkin, Jr., had not yet decided for himself. Perhaps
it was a street-car conductor one day, a prime minister the next,
and an engine driver the third. And then again, watching his
father's carpenters at work, he wished to become a mechanic

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN 235

of some kind ; and plans for buildings fired him with the ambi-
tion of becoming a painter.

In any case, in his thirteenth year he had an opportunity of
watching some experiments on crystallization. It goes with-
out saying that he forthwith decided to be a chemist.

Were it not that about this time Perkin entered the City of
London School, and there came in contact with one of the
science masters, Mr. Thomas Hall, this latest decision might
have been as fleeting as his previous ones.

The City of London School, like all important educational
institutions of the day, considered science as an imposter in the
curriculum, so that whilst Latin received a considerable slice of
the day's attention, poor little Chemistry could be squeezed in
only in the interval set aside for lunch.

A few boys, and among them Perkin, were sufficiently inter-
ested to forego many of their lunches and watch " Tommy Hall "
perform experiments.

Hall's infectious personality made young Perkins all-enthu-
siastic. He was going to be a chemist, and he was going to the
Royal College of Science, of which, and of its renowned chem-
ical professor, Hall had told him much.

Hall's earnest pleading finally overcame the father's oppo-
sition, and in his fifteenth year Perkin entered the College.
"Mr. W. Crookes," 1 the assistant, was the one immediately
in charge.

The head professor was Hofmann, an imported product.
So suggestive and illustrative were the great chemist's lectures
that, in the second semester, Perkin begged and obtained per-
mission to hear them once again.

In the laboratory Perkin was put through the routine in
qualitative and quantitative chemistry, Bunsen's gas analysis
methods serving as an appendix. This was followed by a re-
search problem on anthracene, carried out under Hofmann's
direction, which yielded negative results, but which paved the
way for successful work later. His second problem on naph-
thylamine proved somewhat more successful, and was subse-
quently published in the Chemical Journal — the first of more
than eighty papers to appear from his pen.

When but seventeen Perkin already had shown his mettle
to such an extent that Hofmann appointed him to an assistant-
ship. This otherwise flattering appointment had, however, the
handicap that it left Perkin no time for research. To over-
come this the enthusiastic boy fixed up a laboratory in his own

1 The late Sir W. Crookes.

236 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

home, and there, in the evenings, and in vacation time, the lad
tried explorations into unknown regions.

The celebrated experiment which was to give the seventeen-
year-old lad immortality for all time was carried out in the
little home laboratory in the Easter vacation of 1856. It arose
from some comments by Hofmann on the desirability and the
possibility of preparing the alkaloid, quinine, artificially.

Starting first with toluidine, and then, when toluidine gave
unsatisfactory results, with aniline — both being products of
coal tar — Perkin treated a salt of the latter with bichromate of
potash and obtained a dirty black precipitate.

Dirty, slimy precipitates had been obtained before and had,
as a rule, been discarded as objectionable by-products. Per-
kin's first instinct to throw the " rubbish " away was overcome
by a second, which urged him to make a more careful examina-
tion. And this soon resulted in the isolation of the first dye
ever produced from coal tar — the now well-known aniline pur-
ple or mauve.

A sample of the dye was sent to Messrs. Pullar, of Perth,
with the request that it be tried on silk. "If your discovery
does not make the goods too expensive, it is decidedly one of the
most valuable that has come out for a long time . . ." was the
answer. Trials on cotton were not so successful, mainly be-
cause suitable mordants were not known. This second result
somewhat dampened the enthusiasm of our young friend.

Nevertheless, Perkin decided to patent the process, and, if
possible, to improve the product, as well as to find improved
means of application.

Full of hope and courage, the young lad had decided to stake
his future on the success or failure of this enterprise. He was
going to leave the Royal College of Science, and with the finan-
cial backing of his father — who seems to have had a sublime
faith in his son's ability — he was going to build a factory where
the dye could be produced in quantity.

Hofmann was shown the dye and was told of the resolution.
The well-meaning professor, who seemed to have had more
than a passing fondness for the lad, tried all he could to per-
suade Perkin against any such undertaking. And let it be
added that in that day, to any man with any practical common
sense, Perkin's venture seemed doomed from the start.

A site for the factory was obtained at Greenford Green,
near Harrow, and the building commenced in June, 1857.

"At this time," wrote Perkin years later, "neither I nor
my friends had seen the inside of a chemical works, and what-
ever knowledge I had was obtained from books. This, how-

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN 237

ever, was not so serious a drawback as at first it might appear
to be; as the kind of apparatus required and the character of
the operations to be performed were so entirely different from
any in use that there was but little to copy from."

The practical difficulties Perkin had to overcome were such
that, in comparison, the actual discovery of the dye seems a
small affair. Since most of the apparatus that was required
could not be obtained, it had first to be devised, then tested, and
finally applied.

Nor was this all. Raw materials necessary for the manu-
facture of the dye were as scarce as some rare elements are
to-day. Aniline itself was little more than a curiosity, and one
of the first problems was to devise methods of manufacturing it
from benzene.

The country was searched high and low for benzene. Finally
Messrs. Miller and Co., of Glasgow, were found to be able to
supply Perkin with some quantity, but the price was $1.25 a
gallon, and the quality so poor that it had to be redistilled.

Now the first step in the conversion of benzene to aniline
was to form nitrobenzene, and this required nitric and sulphuric
acids in addition to benzene. Here again the market did not
offer a nitric acid strong enough for the purpose. This had
first to be manufactured from Chili saltpeter and oil of vitroil
(sulphuric acid), and special apparatus bad to be devised.

Bechamp's discovery three years earlier, that nitrobenzene
could be converted into aniline by the action of finely divided
iron and acetic acid was now developed for industrial use, and
here again special apparatus had to be devised.

To-day the most fundamental operations in every dye fac-
tory are nitration — the conversion, say, of benzene to nitro-
benzene — and reduction — the conversion of nitrobenzene to
aniline. The mode of procedure, the technique, the apparatus
— all are based on the work of this eighteen-year-old lad. Only
those who have attempted to repeat on an industrial scale what
has been successfully carried out in the laboratory on a small
scale, will appreciate the difficulties to be overcome, and the
extraordinary ability that Perkin must have possessed to have
overcome them. Think of a Baeyer who synthesized indigo in
his university laboratory, and then think of the twenty years
of continuous labor that was required before the Badische Ana-
lin Fabrik, with its hundreds of expert chemists and mechanics,
was in a position to produce indigo in quantity. And it would
have taken them and others much longer, but for the pioneer
work of young Perkin.

Some have described Perkin's discovery as accidental. Per-

238 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

haps it was. But consider the way it was perfected and made
available; consider with what extraordinary ability every re-
lated topic was handled; consider how every move was a new
move, with no previous experience to guide him; and who but
one endowed with the quality of genius could have overcome all
this? Hertz discovered the key to wireless telegraphy, but
Marconi brought it within reach of all of us ; Baeyer first syn-
thesized indigo, but the combined labors of chemists in the
largest chemical factory in the world were necessary before
artificial indigo began to compete with the natural product;
Perkin both isolated the first artificial dyestuff and made it
useful to man.

In less than six months aniline purple — "Tyrian purple"
it was at first called — was being used for silk dyeing in a Mr.
Keith's dye-house. The demand for it became so great that
many other concerns in England, and particularly in France,
began its manufacture. In France it was renamed "mauve,"
and "mauve" it has remained to this day.

Perkin's improvements continued uninterruptedly, and his
financial success grew beyond all expectations. He found that
the uneven color often obtained in dyeing on silk could be en-
tirely remedied by dyeing in a soap bath. The use of tannin as
one of the mordants made it applicable to cotton, and shades
of various kinds and depths of any degree could be attained
without any difficulty. A process for its use in calico printing
was also worked out successfully.

When, three years later, Verguin discovered the important
magenta — or, as it is sometimes called, fuchsine — and later still
Hofmann, his rosaniline, various details in the manufacture of
mauve and its application to silk, cotton and calico printing,
were appropriated bodily.

Young Perkin had given tremendous impetus to research in
pure and applied chemistry. In the preparation of dyes, sub-
stances which had, until then, been curiosities, had now become
necessities, and methods for their preparation had to be de-
vised. This led to incalculable research in organic chemistry.
In fact, it is hardly too much to say that the basis for most of
the development in organic chemistry since 1856 lies in Perkin's
discovery of mauve.

Industry has not been the only beneficiary. It will be re-
membered that using the dye, methylene blue, as a staining
agent, Koch discovered the bacilli of tuberculosis and cholera.
And coal-tar dyes are to-day used in every histological and bac-
teriological laboratory.

So rapid had been the progress of the industry that in 1861^

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN 239

Perkin, who, though only twenty-three, was already recognized
as the leading English authority, was asked by the Chemical
Society to lecture on coloring matters derived from coal-tar,
and on this occasion the great Michael Faraday, who was pres-
ent, warmly congratulated Perkin upon his fine lecture.

Such dimensions has the coal-tar industry assumed since
then that in 1913, at one single factory, the Baeyer works, in
Elberfeld, Germany, there were employed 8,000 workman and
330 university-trained chemists.

Says Punch:

There's hardly a thing that a man can name

Of use or beauty in life's small game

But you can extract in alembic or jar

From the " physical basis " of black coal-tar —

Oil and ointment, and wax and wine,

And the lovely colors called aniline;

You can make anything from a salve to a star,

If you only know how, from black coal-tar.

In his little laboratory at the factory the various attempts
made in improving the methods of manufacture were not the
only time-consuming factors. The chemical constitution of
mauve and related dyes, as well as purely organic questions
not in any way related to dyes, also engaged Perkin's atten-
tion, and he began to contribute what was to prove an uninter-
rupted stream of papers to the Transactions of the Chemical
Society. In 1866 he was elected to a fellowship in the Royal
Society.

The year 1868 is memorable in the annals of chemistry as
dating the first artificial production of alizarin, the important
coloring matter which until then had been obtained exclusively
from the madder root. This great triumph was due to the
labors of Graebe and Liebermann. But the triumph for the
time being was purely a scientific one. The process as worked
out by these two chemists was far too costly to compete with
the method used in extracting the dye from the madder root.

The starting point to the artificial production of alizarin
was anthracene, another important coal-tar product. It so hap-
pened that the first piece of research Perkin had ever been con-
nected with was related to anthracene, a topic taken up on the
recommendation of his teacher, Hofmann. Naturally, Graebe
and Liebermann's synthesis aroused his interest. He wished to
find some method of producing it at less cost.

In less than a year Perkin had solved the problem. A modi-
fication of the method dispensed with the use of bromine, which
was very costly. A patent was taken out in June, 1869, at about

240 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

the same time that Perkin's process had been discovered quite
independently by Graebe, Liebermann and Caro.

Just as in the case of mauve, the supply of raw materials
and the mastery of technical details, involved much labor and
ingenuity.

To begin with, a constant and generous supply of anthra-
cene was necessary. But where was this to be had? The tar
distillers had had no use for it, and had not troubled to separate
it in the distillation of tar. Many, indeed, there were among
them who did not even know of its existence.

With the help of his brother the various distillers in the
country were visited and the method of isolating the anthracene
from the tar distillate was shown them. The promise that all
anthracene thus obtained would be bought and paid for gen-
erously assured the Perkins of a plentiful supply.

The purification of the anthracene so obtained, the details
of the entire process of manufacturing alizarin and the types
of apparatus to be employed, were all exhaustively investi-
gated. By the end of 1869 one ton of the coloring matter in the
form of a paste had been made. This was increased to 40 tons
in 1870, and to 220 tons in 1871. Until 1873, when the Germans
also began manufacturing it, the Greenwood Green works were
the sole suppliers.

In 1874 Perkin sold his factory, and from henceforth de-
voted himself exclusively to pure research.

Perkin exemplifies the type, more common than is often
supposed, though one entirely beyond the comprehension of the
average business man, who loves the quiet pursuit of research
beyond aught else. Perkin exploited his discovery solely with
the view of providing himself with an income, modest in the
extreme, but sufficient for his extremely simple wants. To ex-
plore unknown fields at leisure and to be freed from all money
matters whilst doing so were his aims.

When Perkin left the Koyal College of Science at seventeen
he had this in mind. Financial insecurity may spur one on, but
to give the very best that is in one requires freedom from such
burdens.

What led him to give up the factory and to devote himself
exclusively to pure science was sheer love of the subject. It is
the type of love which, when associated with genius, has led
to the world's greatest literary and artistic productions.

After 1874 Perkin moved to a new house in Sudbury, and
continued to use the old one as the laboratory.

His research work from now on touched but lightly upon

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN 241

the dye situation. Until 1881 it centered much around the
action of acetic anhydride on a group of organic compounds
known as aldehydes. The first important result that was here
achieved was the synthesis of coumarin, an odorous substance
found in the tonka bean. This was the first case of the produc-
tion of a vegetable perfume from a coal tar product.

These researches culminated in the now classical " Perkin's
Synthesis " of unsaturated fatty acids — a group reaction which
is studied by every student in chemistry to-day.

In 1879 Perkin was the recipient of the Royal Medal of the
Royal Society, the other awards of the year going to Clausius,
for his investigation of the mechanical theory of heat, and
Lecoq de Boisbourdron, for the discovery of the element
gallium. The president addressed Perkin as follows :

Mr. William Perkin has been, for more than twenty years, one of the
most industrious and successful investigators of organic chemistry.

Mr. Perkin is the originator of one of the most important branches
of chemical industry, that of the manufacture of dyes from coal-tar
derivatives.

Forty-three years ago the production of a violet-blue color by the addi-
tion of chloride of lime to oil obtained from coal-tar was first noticed, and
this having afterwards been ascertained to be due to the existence of the
organic base known as aniline, the production of the coloration was for
many years used as a very delicate test for that substance.

The violet color in question, which was soon afterwards also produced
by other oxidising agents, appeared, however, to be quite fugitive, and the
possibility of fixing and obtaining in a state of purity the aniline product
which gave rise to it, appears not to have occurred to chemists until Mr.
Perkin successfully grappled with the subject in 1856, and produced the
beautiful coloring matter known as aniline violet, or mauve, the produc-
tion of which, on a large scale, by Mr. Perkin, laid the foundation of the
coal-tar color industry.

His more recent researches on anthracene derivatives, especially on
artificial alizarine, the coloring matter identical with that obtained from
madder, rank among the most important work, and some of them have
greatly contributed to the successful manufacture of alizarine in this
country.

Among the very numerous researches of purely scientific interest
which Mr. Perkin has published, a series on the hydrides of salicyl and
their derivatives, may be specially referred to; but among the most prom-
inent of his admirable investigations are those resulting in the synthesis
of coumarin, the odoriferous principle of the tonquin bean and the sweet-
scented woodstuff, and its homologues.

The artificial production of glycocoll and of tartaric acid by Mr. Per-
kin conjointly with Mr. Duppa afford other admirable examples of syn-
thetical research. . . .

It is seldom that an investigator of organic chemistry has extended
his researches over so wide a range as is the case with Mr. Perkin, and his
work has always commanded the admiration of chemists for its accuracy
and completeness, and for the originality of its conception.

VOL vii. — 16.

242 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

In 1881, Perkin turned his attention in an entirely new
direction, that of the relationship between the physical prop-
erties and the chemical constitution of substances. Gladstone,
Bruhl and others were already busy connecting such physical
manifestations as refraction and dispersion with chemical con-
stitution. Perkin now introduced a third physical property,
first discovered by Faraday : the power substances possess of ro-
tating the plane of polarization when placed in a magnetic field.

With this general topic Perkin was engaged to the year of
his death. His work has thrown a flood of light upon the con-
stitution of almost every type of organic compound, some, such
as acetoacetic ester and benzene, being of extraordinary fasci-
nation to every chemist.

There are chemists — and H. E. Armstrong is among them- —
who regard this phase of Perkin's life work as his crowning
achievement. If it has not received such general recognition as
his earlier work, that is to be largely ascribed to a lack of
knowledge of physics which prevailed among chemists until
quite recently. However, even as far back as 1889 Perkin was
presented with the Davy Medal of the Royal Society as a re-
ward for his magnetic studies.

The year 1906 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the
founding of the coal-tar industry, and the entire scientific world
stirred itself to do honor to the founder. A meeting was held
on July 26 of that year at the Royal Institution in London, over
which Professor R. Meldola, the then president of the Chemical
Society, presided, and those in attendance included some of the
most distinguished representatives of science in the world.

The first part of the meeting consisted in the presentation
of his portrait (painted by A. S. Cope, A.R.S.) to the guest of
the evening. A bust of Perkin (executed by Mr. Pomeroy,
A.R.A.), for the library of the Chemical Society, was next
shown. In addition the chairman stated that a fund of several
thousand pounds had been collected for the endowment of
chemical research in the name of " Sir William Henry Perkin "
(he had been knighted in the meantime) .

Professor Emil Fischer, president of the German Chemical
Society, presented to Perkin the Hofmann Medal, which was
accompanied with this address :

Die Deutsche Chemische Gesellschaft hat Herrn Dr. W. H. Perkin in
London Fur ausgezeichnete Leistungen auf dem Gebiete der Organischen
Chemie, in besonderen fur die Begriindung der Teerfarben-Industrie, den
Hofmann-Preis verliehen. Berlin, im Juli, 1906. Der Prasident: E.
Fischer. Die Schrif tf uhrer : C. Schotten, W. Will.

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN 243

Professor A. Haller, representing France, presented Perkin
with the Lavoisier Medal, with this address :

La Society Chimique de Paris, a l'occasion du Jubilee destinee a
celebrer la cinquantieme anniversaire de la premiere matiere colorante
derivee de la houille, et comme temoignage de haute estime pour ses
travaux, est heureuse d'offrir au Dr. William Henri Perkin, Inventeur de
la Mauveine (1865), sa Medaille de Lavoisier a l'effigie de celui qui fut
l'un des premiers et des plus illustres applicateurs des Sciences Chimiques
a l'industrie et a la prosperite publiques. Le Secretaire-General: A.
Behal. Le President de la Societe Chimique de Paris: Armand Gautier.
Juillet, 1906.

Addresses were also delivered by Dr. Baekeland, represent-
ing the chemists of America; Professor Paul Friedlander, on
behalf of the scientific and technical chemists of Austria ; Pro-
fessor P. Van Romburgh, Holland ; Professor H. Rupe, Switzer-
land; Lord Kelvin, representing the Royal Society; and Pro-
fessor Meldola, on behalf of the English Chemical Society.

A passage from the Chemical Society's report is worth
quoting :

. . . However highly your technical achievements be rated, those
who have been intimately associated with you must feel that the example
which you have set by your rectitude as well as by your modesty and sin-
cerity of purpose is of chiefest value. That you should have been able, as
a very young man, to overcome the extraordinary difficulties incident to
the establishment of an entirely novel industry fifty years ago is a clear
proof that you were possessed in an unusual degree of courage, inde-
pendence of character, judgment, and resourcefulness; but even more
striking is your return into the fold of scientific workers and the ardor
with which you have devoted yourself to the prosecution of abstract
physico-chemical inquiries of exceptional difficulty. In the account of
your renowned master, Hofmann, you have stated that one of your great
fears on entering into technical work was that it might prevent your
continuing research work; that you should have felt such regret at such a
period is sufficiently remarkable, and it must be a source of enduring satis-
faction to you to know that your later scientific work deserves, in the
opinion of many, to rank certainly no less than your earlier.

How much Perkin was appreciated in Germany, where the
coal-tar industry had developed into such gigantic proportions,
is shown by the delegation that came from that country. There
were Professor Bernthsen, Dr. H. Caro and Dr. Ehrhardt, of
the Badische Analin und Soda-Fabrik; Dr. Aug. Clemm, Herr
R. Bablich, and Dr. E. Ullrich, Farbwerke, Meister, Lucius, and
Briming; Dr. Klingeman, Casella and Co., Professor Carl Duis-
berg and Dr. Nieme, Farbenfabriken, Elberfeld, and Professor
Liebermann — in short, the cream of Germany's industrial chem-
ical fraternity.

244 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

And there were messages from Professor Beilstein (Petro-
grad), Professor Ciamician (Bologna), Professor Canizzaro
(Rome), Professor Jorgensen (Copenhagen), Professor Taka-
yama (Tokyo), Professor Adolf Baeyer (Munich), Professor
J. W. Brtihl (Heidelberg), Professor G. Lunge (Zurich), and
Professor Hugo Schiff (Florence) — an international band of
illustrious scholars.

In the autumn following the jubilee celebrations in London,
Sir William Perkin accepted an invitation from the American
committee to visit its shores. Various gatherings were held
in his honor in New York, Boston, Washington, etc.

In New York a dinner was tendered him at Delmonico's,
with the veteran Professor Chandler, of Columbia, in the chair.
Dr. W. H. Nichols presented him with the first impress of the
Perkin Medal, since awarded annually to the American chemist
who has most distinguished himself by his services to applied
chemistry; and Dr. W. F. Hillebrand, then president of the
American Chemical Society, presented the diploma of honorary
membership of the society to the guest of the evening. Other
speakers included President Ira Remsen of Johns; Hopkins,
Professor Nernst of Berlin, and Dr. W. H. Wiley, chief chemist
of the Department of Agriculture, Washington.

Aside from his scientific achievements Perkin's life was
extremely uneventful. To him science was his life, and he
seems to have had no avocation. We find no romantic dash, no
such many-sidedness, as characterized his great countryman,
Ramsay, for example. With modesty carried to the extreme,
only the privileged few knew anything of the man, and even
Professor Meldola, an intimate friend of many years' standing,
could give but few personal touches of the man in his otherwise
excellent obituary address, delivered to the members of the
Chemical Society. "... I thank God, to whom I owe every-
thing, for all His goodness to me, and ascribe to Him all the
praise and honor." This was Perkin's review of his life in
1906. A blameless Christian, a perfect gentleman, a fine type
of the old conservative, he lived unobtrusively, worked quietly
and intensively, worshiped God, and respected his neighbor.
To us, living in days of turmoil and upheaval, such a personage
already belongs to an age long past.

Perkin was twice married. His first wife was a daughter
of the late Mr. John Lisset. Some years after her death he
married a daughter of Mr. Herman Molwo. Mrs. Perkin, three
sons, and four daughters, survive him.

WILLIAM HENRY PERKIN 245

His sons are all noted chemists. One of them, Arthur
George, is a technical expert, and another, William Henry, is
professor of chemistry at Oxford. This Oxford professor is
without doubt the foremost organic chemist in England to-day.
His work on polymethylenes, alkaloids, camphor, terpenes, etc.,
is of the highest order.

Like that other grand Englishman, Darwin, Perkin, the
genius, begot Perkins of genius. Not always are the gods so
kind to the children of geniuses.

To great ends and projects had thy life been given;
Right well and nobly has the goal been won;
For this, Great Discoverer, thou hast striven;
Take, then, our thanks, for all that thou hast done.

(Nora Hastings, — dedicated to Perkin).